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Three
days away.

I of course have not told my dad
about the meet-up, nor do I plan to. I’d rather risk getting abducted by a potential pedophile who has been pretending to be Harper Knight, sixteen-year-old girl, this whole time than admit to him I have feelings for someone I met over the internet. I don’t know exactly how he’d react, but I’m certain it would start with him laughing at me, commenting on the stupidity of falling for someone online who I’ve never even seen a picture of, and then he’d eventually find every possible way to make snide remarks with it. “Loser son.” “Can’t get a date.” “Only girlfriend is found through the internet.” That kind of crap.

The next day,
a Wednesday, flies by equally fast. I don’t talk to Cat or Harper or my dad much, just go to school, do my homework, film my next vlog, and go to bed. I don’t sleep that night, though. Instead, I spend the whole of it imagining Harper and what she looks like—I’ve nailed her down as brown-haired, lightly tanned, with green eyes and perfect cheekbones. I wonder how our meeting will go and what it’ll be like to finally sit down next to her and just talk to her, person to person, me to her. Will she be as funny in real life as she is online? Will I be charmed by her even more in person?

As I lie there in bed,
my eyes closed, I imagine what her laugh sounds like in real life, whether her eyes sparkle, whether her mouth is always curled into a smile like I imagine it is. I wonder what she looks like when she’s eating pizza, or how she would dress for Halloween, or what she would be like, fitting into my life. For real. And also, a small part of me wonders whether I’ll strike up the courage to tell her how I really feel about her—and, if I do, how she’ll react.

But
beyond all that, a much larger part of me is scared. Not scared about Harper being a fifty-year-old man (okay, well, kind of that too), but scared of what she’ll think of me. Scared she’ll decide I’m actually a loser dorky kid, scared she’ll think I’m stupid or annoying or whatever it may be. Scared she’ll leave me and never want to be a part of my life again.

Even more so, I worry
she won’t feel the same way about me as I feel about her. I mean, of course Harper and I have talked about “us” and what we are and want to become together. We have plenty of times, especially for an internet couple, but neither of us ever mentioned dating or kissing or any kind of attraction. Sure, she’s said she liked me before and joked about sexual things between us, but maybe she means “like” as a friend and the jokes as just harmless comments. Maybe I’m totally overplaying this whole thing.

My heart sinks at the thought, and I run my hand through my hair.
Shit. I always assumed we mutually, well,
like liked
each other, but now I realize it was only that: an assumption. She never actually said she liked me that way, and I never asked. I just hoped, wanted it so much I made it true in my head.

A groan escapes my lips
. Oh shit shit shit. What if I’ve been overplaying this whole thing? What if she only sees us as friends and this whole meet-up is so she can properly be just that: my friend? What if, if I tell her how I really feel, she doesn’t share the feeling? Or worse, what if she runs right out of my life and doesn’t ever return?

Oh god. Oh god oh god oh god.
I love her, and as screwed up as it sounds, I really do. But I don’t want my love to drive her away.

I turn over in my bed and lie flat on my stomach,
my gaze climbing up my wall to the poster Mom made me of her and me and Cat and Dad partaking in our annual Ice-Cream-Eating contest a year ago. We’re all grinning and laughing and shoving each other in the picture, being totally normal and totally careless. The sun beats down on us as we stand in front of
The Icecreamery
, our faces smeared with vanilla, making the most random poses we can think of. I sigh at the memory. Why can’t this whole thing be as easy and as simple as ice cream? Why can’t everything just be sweet, with no other strings attached?

It isn’
t that simple, though. It isn’t ice cream. It doesn’t make sense, and personally, I’m not sure it’s supposed to.

But for the first time since Mom died, I love someone in my life, and it’s sure as hell going to take a lot to stop me from chasing
her.

***

The next day, after classes are over, Cat asks me to meet her for an early dinner, and I agree without a moment’s hesitation. Anything to keep me from freaking out about Harper and the meet-up is more than welcome at this point. 

Cat and I meet at a local Italian restaurant,
both of us “dressing up” with relevant meatball and pasta T-shirts—we are incredibly classy people—and as soon as we step inside, the hostess leads us to a red leather booth in the very back of the room. The restaurant is small and warm, with dim lights everywhere and some Italian music playing at a dull hum in the background. The air smells like pasta and garlic bread, and I can hear the laughter of a group of fifty-something adults sitting across from us. We sit down, and the seat feels so soft to the touch. A waitress dressed in a black and white shirt comes over a minute later and pours us water, and we thank her as she moves on to the next table.

“So Cat,” I say when she leaves. A dim spotlight overhead shines onto Cat’s hair, illuminating it a perfect golden red. We
’ve eaten at this restaurant before, too. Italian restaurants are always a big destination when it comes to our hardcore dorkiness, mostly so we can order breadsticks, get out a white chef’s hat, and pretend to look Italian and even talk like it to other customers. This usually results in freaked out looks from random strangers, who Cat and I dismiss as just being jealous of our inner Italian badassery.

“So West,” Cat says. Her lips are
pursed into a small smile as she skims over the menu in her hand.  “I haven’t heard much from you this week. What’s going on in your life?”

I lean back in my seat
, flexing the cramp in my hand. “Just fighting crime. Saving the world. Rescuing small puppies from burning buildings. You know. The usual.”

She rolls her eyes. “Wow. You’re a really extraordinary person, West.”

“The truth is, I do it for the children,” I say.

She stifles a laugh. “
That’s amazing. I’m glad I have someone I can count on when my life is in danger.”

“Always,” I say.
“Just let me know when you are in danger. But I should warn you, you may need to leave a message since being an incredibly sexy superhero is a very tedious and time-consuming gig, with the hot girls chasing after me and all, so you never know when I’ll be free.” I take a sip of my water, suppressing a smile, listening as the music overhead changes from a symphony of some sort to an opera song. “What are you ordering?” I ask after a while.

“Breadsticks,”
she says immediately.

I raise my eyebrow.
“
Just
breadsticks?”

“Of course.
You aren’t the only badass here, West Ryder. And breadsticks are the greatest invention known to man.”

“Even more than chocolate Oreo cake?”
I whistle to myself. This is new territory. Cat
loves
chocolate Oreo cake.

“Hmm. Maybe. Either way, you’re now officially on-the-hook to get me both for my birthday next month.”

“I would expect no less.”

“Good.”

“Good?”

“
Good
,” she reaffirms, nodding.

The waitress
returns about a minute later, takes our orders, grabs the menus, and walks over to the next booth. When she’s gone, I turn back to Cat. “I feel like we need to use your breadsticks to look Italian again. Did you bring the hats?”

She reaches into her bag and holds up two white chef hats. “Of course.
You doubt me?”

I feign a gasp.
“
Never
!”

She smiles. “
I’m glad. Now all we need is a fake Italian mustache and accent and we’ll be golden.”

“YES! And then we can stand at the door saying, ‘ze pasta es deliciosa’ with our fingers cupped together when customers come in
.”

Cat
takes a sip with her water and wipes her lips with her hands. “West,” she says, “you’re still terrible at this whole ‘don’t enforce stereotypes!’ thing.”

I raise my eyebrow. “I’m Italian myself, so I have an excuse. Obviously.”

“
Obviously
.”

Our food comes a few minutes later, and we eat in silence for a
long while. I listen to the conversation of the people behind us—a long rant about something political that I don’t really follow—and eat way too much of my spaghetti and meatballs. In my defense, the food tastes like it was brought directly down to me from the heavens.

After a
while, I sense Cat’s gaze on me. I look up at her, but she jerks away as soon as our gaze locks like she’s been slapped.

“What?” I say.

Her mouth is full of breadstick as she responds, “Nothing.”

“
It’s not nothing,” I say, leaning over to her and putting my hand to her forehead to check her temperature. “Why do you look so weird?”

Color creeps across her cheeks, and
she pushes my hand away. I stare at her, frowning some more. This is weird.
Really
weird.

“Nothing,” she says
too sharply. “
No
-
thing
.”

“Okay,” I say. I don’t believe her, but I don’t press it, either.

We don’t talk much after that, just finish eating, get the check, and converse briefly about my nightly vigils as a superhero and all of the hot girls I attract.

After a while, Cat asks me what I’m doing tomorr
ow—she says she wants me to come over and study—and I’m almost tempted to tell her all about Harper and how I finally get to meet her, but instead I just shrug and say, “I’m busy.”

I swear she doesn’t believe me.

Chapter 5

School the next day goes by painfully slowly.
First Calculus, then Physics, then History—it’s like they’re
trying
to kill me. I can’t concentrate at all during class, either. All I can think about is Harper Harper Harper and how OMG I’M MEETING HER AFTER SCHOOL and AAHHHH YESSS I NEED THIS and that’s pretty much it. It’s not like this is abnormal, though, because the classes here don’t interest me much anyway—well, except for English. I’m the complete, shameless English nerd. My mom used to make fun of me for constantly correcting her grammar and even pulling that “Knock Knock. Who’s there? To. To who? Jeez, Mom, don’t you know anything? It’s to
whom
!” joke on her. I read a bit too, but not as much as I would want. I’m mostly into English so I can criticize people’s grammar and “lack of eloquent word choice” whenever possible.

Anyway,
worrying about Harper and how our meet-up will go keeps me well occupied throughout the entire day. I don’t think I could name one thing we did in any of the classes.

Finally, after
what feels like a century, the last class ends. As soon as the teacher dismisses us, I dart out the door, grab my bag, and race down the hall toward the school entrance.

My pulse quickens.
Holy shit.
I finally get to meet Harper.

“Where are you going?” Cat calls after me, but I just wave my hand and say, “A meeting.”
Technically it isn’t a lie, although it isn’t much by way of honesty either. But really, I’m not exactly thrilled by the idea of Cat knowing about Harper. I don’t know why, I just want to keep it, like with my vlog, separate from her.

As soon as
I burst through the front doors of the school, I run down to the parking lot, hop into Dad’s car, and drive probably too fast down to the coffee shop. When I pull into the parking lot of the shop a few minutes later, all of my emotion seems to crash down on me at once. I’m really doing this, I realize, gripping the steering wheel too hard. Four months of waiting and I’m finally meeting Harper.

Again, I repeat: h
oly shit.

Slowly,
I get out of the car and cool air blasts me from all around. I straighten up, taking a breath. Then, with my eyes locked on the coffee shop door, I start walking to the girl of my dreams.

My
pulse is pounding as I approach, and each step, each crunch of leaves underfoot, makes my ears ring and makes my whole body get tenser and tenser.
I’m going to meet Harper
, I tell myself.
Oh my god oh my god I’m seriously going to meet her.
In that instant everything that could possibly go wrong seems to race my through my head, and my heart keeps on thudding, thudding, thudding. What if she decides I’m too awkward for her? What if she hates me? What if she takes one look at me, laughs, and walks out? What if I screw up my one shot with her like I have everything else in my life?

I shake my head, trying to push away the
bad thoughts because this is supposed to be a
happy
time, but they just keep coming back.